Very good morning, everyone. Greetings from the sunny downtown Helsinki on this very historical day in many ways. We have the pleasure to present to you the quarter one results of Relais Group for 2022. My name is Arni Ekholm. I'm the CEO of the group, and together with me today, as always, my loyal CFO, Mr. Pekka Raatikainen, who will take you through the numbers a bit later.
This is the content of the presentation. It's going to take about, let's say, half an hour, 35 minutes, during which you have the chance to submit questions online by pressing the Ask a Question button on your screen. Then our lovely Rosa will take care of the questions afterwards, and we will then entertain them and answer them at the end of the presentation.
The contents is going to be the core of Relais Group, what kind of company is Relais Group. I want to reiterate it, and we have slightly modified it as well. I want to explain to you the value creation model of Relais because it's very focal and important to understand how we operate and how we create value for the shareholders. A short business review of the quarter one from a business perspective, and also a deeper look at the financials done by Pekka. I want to explain how we go about when we map the M&A target markets, the aftermarket, what is our strategy and how do we operate, how do we pick the right companies, and what is important for us.
I think it might also be interesting for you to understand how we do that since it's a very important part of our strategy. Then a short recap of our strategy and long-term target, and then a summary at the end. What is the core of Relais Group? How do we define ourselves? We are sector-focused consolidator, meaning that we know the sector very well.
We consolidate the market, we build stronger entities in this market and drive shareholder value by combining strong earnings growth with the creation of a modern and stable long-term player in the changing mobility landscape. The mobility landscape is undergoing a huge change, but there are also very much defensive features in the market. It's a combination of strong dynamics and also a stable market. We aim to be a long-term player.
It's not a game of quarters, it's more a game of 25-year quarters in this market. Focused on the aftermarket, that is what we know that we have analyzed is the most profitable sector in the market and the best for value creation purposes. We have strong earnings growth through three reinforcing themes. Acquisitions, which is the main part of our strategy, synergies, which then drives organic growth, and then operational improvements.
We buy companies, we develop them, and we keep them, and our ownership perspective is basically perpetual in that respect. The overall direction is guided by a solid understanding of the underlying medium- and long-term trends. Not only the present development of the market, but also what's going on in the market.
How do we believe the market is going to look like in 10 years or 20 years, and what's happening in the mobility market? Aspects like ESG, demographics, how does that affect the transport, transportation business and vehicle sales and e-commerce, which is coming more and more.
We with our sector focus, we have a competitive advantage because we know this market very well. The Relais value creation model, in a way, if you will, is a classical buy and build model. We are, I've said it before, we are, to be honest, quite picky when we choose the right companies. I mean, we need to be assured there's a healthy core in the company that we acquire.
There's good management, there's stable profitability, there's sustainable profitability that we can see a path in the company that it doesn't turn into ashes once we buy it. We spend a lot of time in analyzing the market and the companies. We need to identify a robust and meaningful value creation potential in the company, either as a standalone company, which we also have, or then as a company that can draw benefit of the synergies between other sister companies.
That's a kind of a reinforcing theme in our strategy, that we draw benefits of the synergies between the companies, whether it be procurement synergies or cross-selling synergies, as we also have product companies with own brands, then we can use the distribution companies with our group, to distribute those products.
To leverage the insider knowledge and in-depth knowledge of the target companies and sectors. We very seldom need to use outside advisors to come and bring us ideas of which companies to approach. We already, through our own network, have a lot of contacts with different companies. I'm not, of course, belittling the role of advisors here because we get a lot of good hints and contacts also through the advising community.
The next step in the buy and build process is building a great business. It doesn't stop there that we acquire a company. I mean, then the work actually starts. That is how to run the company. Most often the companies we buy are already on a very good level.
When I'm saying here that professionalizing the running of the acquired companies doesn't mean that they are not professional already, but it means that we can take them one step further in our group and help the companies to grow by setting up certain, let's say, follow-up systems and support systems for the companies so that they can focus more on creating value for their customers. We increase focus on execution and strategy, and I will explain shortly a bit more about how we operate from the, let's say, the central management all the way down to the group companies.
It's not a bureaucracy, it is more like a hybrid model or decentralized model where we all the time see what's going on and are participating in the local running of the companies on a reasonable level, not by taking the local ownership away, but by showing interest and supporting the companies.
All this then accelerates growth by enabling these intercompany synergies and also most of the companies we buy, if not all of them, offer great opportunities for add-on acquisitions. It's a self-fulfilling, in a way, perpetual moving machine that then offers and opens new doors for us, which is a huge benefit for the group.
A very short recap on history. What has the journey of Relais Group been from 2010 when the group was founded? It was EUR 24 million with the main asset being Startax Auto-Electronics in Finland. Since that, basically in 10 years, the company is seven times bigger, almost eight times bigger than it was 10 years ago. It has been a huge development. Also, the organic growth has been healthy all the way through. Then the acquisition growth has topped that growth dramatically. We basically doubled our size in a couple of years after the IPO we did, even more than doubled. What kind of group companies do we have?
I've tried to group them in certain, let's say, more meaningful groups for you to understand how we operate. If we start with the commercial vehicles, spare parts, and equipment, it is mostly wholesale and distribution that is a big part of our operation. You can see companies called Tunga Delar, Trucknik, Huzells, and Startax. You can see actually Startax in many different brackets or buckets actually because they are operating in a kind of multi-business having a multi-business operating model. We have the passenger car-related focused companies, ABR almost solely on passenger cars and light commercial vehicles and then Startax's also distribution business.
Let's say in kind of a newcomer in the group, we made a strategic decision to start building a strong foothold in the independent aftermarket repair and maintenance for heavy commercial vehicles, which is then Raskone, STS, and then the latest family member, Skeppsbrons in Sweden.
All in all, we start to have well over 30 repair shops in the Nordic countries, if not even closer to 40. We are by far the biggest operator in this field. Why is it important to be big in this business? You can draw benefits of the economy of scale when it comes to the procurement of spare parts and also you can benchmark and learn from each other.
All the companies are slightly different between each other and some is better in something and some in something else. We can then take the, let's say, learnings from each chain and develop the business forward and actually then increase the shareholder value by increasing the profitability and return on investment. A very exciting part of our business is lighting, power management, and equipment, where you have brands and companies like Strands, Awimex, SEC, and Startax. This is a huge business for us. At least one-fourth of our business comes from lighting-related own-branded goods.
It is a thing that I want to promote and take up every time because from a profitability point of view and also from the future potential point of view, it is really important for us. Brands like Strands have managed to export their products all the way to North America and Australia, which is like soon a kind of global presence for that brand and also partly Startax's brands. E-commerce is mostly for us lighting at the moment. We acquired a company called Lumise, who has a daughter company called DSM in Sweden. We are learning by doing. We have a solid basis for e-commerce, very good in-house developed platform for that, and we intend to roll that further in the coming years. Okay. Let's have a look at quarter one.
It was a rocky ride, I have to say, and at this stage I also want to thank our personnel. I mean, the conditions were harsh, not only COVID, but also, from our perspective, the bad winter or the winter that never came, made it really tough. I know there was a lot of sick leaves and, I don't know whether this was the fourth or fifth wave of COVID already, no one of us could have foreseen that actually hit so hard, especially in January, February. The winter conditions, why is that important for us? I think it's first and foremost because our business is very much focused in the first quarter of the year, always in electrical spare parts and electrical equipment, which are temperature sensitive.
If the winter is good, meaning for us good, 20, 25, -30 degrees, then it's a huge boost for those product groups. If the temperature is +5, then it doesn't really support that business that much. If you compare 2021, it was an exceptionally strong quarter compared with 2020 or 2019. In comparison with 2021, of course, this looks soft, and the markets were indeed soft. I mean, there was a lot of demand-driven things that affected the market. Practical things like if the mechanics are sick, they can't invoice for the jobs, and if the customers are on sick leave, they don't come to the workshop. It's basically very obvious what happened in the quarter one in January, February.
The general cost increases, everybody knows what has happened with fuel and energy prices. They are hitting both, the private consumption, which then reflects to our customers' businesses, and then also the transportation sector has had tough time, with absorbing the cost of the energy prices and fuel prices.
That has stalled some of the investments, especially for the equipment products from the transportation companies. I do personally believe that it's more like a delay of consumption and demand than a kind of a permanent lack of demand in the market. It's more like a time delay caused by the circumstances.
Generally, there was less driven kilometers in January and February, although the amount of vehicles has actually increased. From that perspective, the underlying market is very healthy. We regard this as a temporary reduction in both repair and maintenance jobs and also the driven kilometers. If everything goes fine, then of course it's just a delay of demand because if you have to repair your car, you ultimately have to repair it at some stage before it becomes inoperable. Good. There was slight.
Let's say Pekka will get back to more, like, the financial details, but then the euro and Swedish krona exchange rate caused a slight deficit on the EBITDA compared to last year. How I see it is that the market conditions is a temporary thing. It has not affected the implementation of the group strategy. We are going on with our strategy of active acquisitions. We are drawing synergy benefits between the companies, and then the companies are more and more working together with each other, which offsets some of the cyclicality or weather-related issues.
If we think about the companies we have acquired, we of course very regularly follow up on the company's performance, how they are doing, and I have to say I'm really happy with how quickly most of the companies have adapted to their planned role and how quickly we have been able to harvest the benefits of working together.
It's not always like the first month or first half year when the synergy benefits are visible in the numbers, but they will come and there's a lot of good stuff going on to mention. Let's say spare part cooperation between Startax and Raskone and also the group benchmarking with STS and Raskone on how to really even further improve the profitability of each individual workshops.
Regarding the acquisition activities, we continued acquisitions in line with our strategy. Skeppsbrons Jönköping, I have a different slide of that company. I think it was a fantastic acquisition, a real gold nugget in this business, most likely the most profitable workshop in Sweden in this sector, and we are really happy to have them on board, and a few words afterwards more about that one.
That's a strategic growth area, as I mentioned in the beginning, the independent commercial vehicle repair and maintenance sector. It just reinforces our position in Sweden. We are spending a lot of time, and I will explain to you slightly later of how we work when we look for targets in the acquisition market.
We have investigated tens of different companies already during the last months and, well, of course you can't see what's going on. We can only announce the deals that are done. There's a lot of work going on and we are critical in finding the right companies. Maybe as a statement also at this stage, I would say now is not the time to rush on the acquisition front because we see the multiples going down of the asking prices, but they always come with a lag. Usually the sellers still have a bigger or let's say a higher expectation than what the market level actually is at the moment.
I reckon the summer will be a good period to negotiate and then come the second half year, the asking prices have most likely come into a more normalized level than they used to be last year. We are very disciplined and even methodological in the way we do the investigation of the companies. We need to make sure there's a good strategic fit, and as I explained in the beginning, a good management that we can commit and count on and then also to have a plausible growth path for the company.
We don't want to drive into a minefield in this business and we feel a big responsibility for the shareholders' money that we are spending on this, that we want to add value in the long term for the company. Sometimes the profitability, if we only solely look at that number, might look low-ish, but then there's a plan to take it up, or the return on investment is actually the decisive point of how do we allocate capital, for when we go forward. That is very important for the future growth potential of our company. A few words about Skeppsbron's Bengt Hestner, who is the main owner and Managing Director, has created a really impressive operation with his team.
Unfortunately I was not able to participate in the signing, but in the little picture you can see both me and my regional manager, Juan, online there on the screen, and then Bengt and Lennart, who is our M&A guy, signing the deal. This is kind of a hybrid deal by being physically there and also online there.
This is a very good solid company in Jönköping, 41 people, out of which 28 are mechanics, a very healthy ratio between mechanics and other staff, and a very good profitability. Of course here there's a lot of potential to then do benchmarking with the rest of the workshops in the group. Good. Finally, before I let Pekka loose. A few words about the outlook 2022.
We feel that the sector focus and the in-depth knowledge we have of the vehicle aftermarket gives us a unique competitive advantage in doing corporate acquisitions. That is going to continue. We know this business. We are going to acquire companies, but we are also picky. It's not about volume, it's about quality. The market situation, we saw already some signs of normalization during March and even more so in April, mostly in Sweden. I see a slight difference between the Swedish and Finnish markets. Nothing to do with the way we operate or our companies operate. It's more the general market sentiment in both countries where Sweden seems to be more resilient economically than the Finnish economy.
I think the political unrest and concern has been higher in Finland, where people are more cautious in spending. Again, I think it is a temporary reduction of consumption that will then come back during this year. When we assess the outlook, we feel that we are very well positioned to continue growing faster than the market. Of course, the market at the moment is expected not to grow, probably going to be flat this year. It's still hard to say whether there's a ketchup bottle effect coming after the summer because you can't stall the repairs forever. There is still so much uncertainty in the market. I want to remind you that a big part of our strategy is based on acquisition and growth by acquisitions.
Hence it is very difficult to give a specific number for this year. We do not provide a numeric guidance for this year. We can state that we feel that we are well positioned to continue the implementation of our strategy. We have the products and we have the plans and good acquisition talks going on with different companies. Good. Pekka, please take over.
Thanks, good morning. As well described by Arni, the quarter one can be said to be a real test for us in many ways in circumstances where many unfavorable market events behind our control were happening at the same time. Given the level of challenge we were facing, the development in key figures can be described, being understandable.
Of course, it's always a great disappointment for us not to meet and exceed last year's figures. As said, the circumstances for this short period and start of the year make it more understandable. We are, and have been focusing for the rest of the year. The first period now is over, and there are three more to come.
Given the circumstances, the EBITA margin reached kind of demonstrate certain resiliency of the business even in the hardest conditions. That is worth mentioning here. I move on the balance sheet. The changes in the group's balance sheets are mainly driven by the acquisitions. More recently, the development in net working capital is also worth mentioning here. All in all, in comparison with last year's first quarter, these changes were modest this time. Equity ratio remains well at a level anticipated. Cash assets, here we can see the development related to net working capital on building up inventories intentionally.
As we know and have been seeing that the circumstances in international supply chains and international logistics remain challenging, we have not been able to emphasize on cash conversion, but been continuing investing in the inventories to maintain the ability to deliver. For those reasons, the cash flow from operations is ±0. Practically, it's below the last year level, and the main reason being the inventory situation and the investment for the delivery capacity for the rest of the year.
On investment side, there were no acquisition driven activities except one, the additional consideration related to STS acquisition. On financing, the most important news is actually not visible in the cash flow. As we announced, we extended our senior facility agreement by one year to be valid until May 2024.
At the same time, additional limits were introduced EUR 7 million committed, EUR 25 million uncommitted limit to enable the further potential for the acquisitions. Earnings per share was reflected by the financial development, but not that much on EPS, excluding amortization of goodwill level. Given the circumstances, we could defend this reasonably, I would say.
Good. Thank you, Pekka. I will spend a few minutes on explaining how the aftermarket looks like from our perspective and how it ties into our M&A strategy. This picture I have shown you before, for the ones who have followed this webcast before, we consider our group focus area to be what we call the vehicle life cycle enhancement. I mean, if you look at the value chain up on the part of the slide, you can see that this is kind of a life cycle of the vehicle from cradle to grave, if you will. Manufacturing, import and reselling, and then the orange colored parts are the focus area for us.
From the vehicle comes into the country or the market, it undergoes usually certain type of customizing or changes and equipment. You tend to have to maintain and repair the vehicle and also to get some spare parts for it. There are also supporting services which support these functions.
At the end of the life cycle, there's demolition and recycling, which we are at least currently not considering as a focus area. On the y-axis of the graph, you can see different types of vehicles where we currently actually are not in the two-wheeled vehicle department that much, but everything underneath, from passenger cars to heavy vehicles and agriculture and lorries and buses.
As I just explained, you can approach the markets from different angles. I mean, it is a huge market. If you take the whole market in the Nordics, it's anywhere between EUR 20 billion-EUR 40 billion, depending on the definition of the aftermarket. That's also partly including the OE business. I would be probably on the safe side if I would say EUR 20 billion would be the addressable market for kind of independent aftermarket, because you can really find a lot of different subgroups and categories under each of these markets that I just described, the value chain as such. Then also inside the vehicle type, you can focus and specialize on trucks or buses or military vehicles and so on and so forth.
On distribution, you can have a national role or regional role or local retailer. We are not in retail at the moment. You would have different customer types or segments, business to business to consumer, fleets versus owner-operators, and so on and so forth, private sector, public sector. It is a huge market, to put it short.
This is an illustrative picture, and I won't dwell too long in it. It's just to show you the myriads of different type of businesses you have in each of these sectors that we are focusing on, just to show you what the full potential is to consolidate. It's not only about. I mean, we are often referred to as a spare part company. It's nothing wrong with that because we also distribute spare parts.
We also operate workshops and we have global brands as well. If you look at the different types of businesses within customizing, you would find different type of vehicles that are equipped with different types of power management and lighting products. On the distribution part, you have different types of spare parts and equipment that are sold.
Maintenance repair can be general repairs, can be specialized repairs, can be damage repairs, glass repairs, service of other equipment, and also equipment for the service part. You would have also the kind of support and services like fuel, energy, fleet management, washing of the cars, car care, roadside assistance and everything.
We consider this all as the addressable market, even if the core at the moment is centralized probably mostly into the two middle parts at the moment. This is the addressable market that we find opportunities to consolidate in the future. How do we then go about when we assess these different companies and categories and markets? This is a kind of top-line approach of how we are looking at it. I mean, it's of course the market size is one part, and then the independent aftermarket operator share of the total. If I give you an example, then the commercial vehicle sector is largely dominated by the big OE players.
Anywhere between 60%-80% is controlled by the OE operators, while the passenger car aftermarket is roughly 50/50 OE or original equipment car vehicle manufacturers, and then 50% is the independent operators. We see a huge potential in the commercial vehicle sector for the independent operators to take market share. We look at the growth. Is it a stable growth? Is it possible to grow faster by consolidating the sector somehow? Cyclicality, there are certain cyclical markets as well, and product groups that we then compare with. I think we have moved more and more to look at EBIT and rather than EBITDA.
Of course, we want to understand the CapEx needs and the cash flow, and then looking at the ROIC or ROC is important for the sustainable value creation from a shareholder point of view. It's not only always about EBITDA, it's also, I mean, when we deploy capital, I mean, how do we get the best possible value for the shareholders, and for the company to then develop the company in the future.
Market-wise, how fragmented it is. Is it already very consolidated? Then probably wouldn't go there, because then most likely also the price of the companies would already be quite high. But I'm not saying no also to look at bigger acquisitions with already quite consolidated sectors. Availability of platform companies.
I mean, if we go into a new sector, we want to also have a vision what we are going to do in that sector. I'm not going too much into details, but I mean, if there's a sector that we would look at, okay, this might be interesting, but if we then only manage to buy two local companies in one of the countries in Nordic, it doesn't really bring us anywhere. We want to also have a vision of where do we want to go with these companies. Can we grow? Can they be a platform also for add-on acquisitions? Market dynamics, how competitive is the market. We already now see differences between the Nordic countries where you have between Finland and Sweden a totally different competition picture at the moment.
The attractiveness determined primarily by, for the company, the target company purchase price, expected synergies, we always kind of take into consideration in the equation. What I said, the growth platform, we make a projection of how much can we grow organically and then to have add-ons. I mean, it's the responsibility of all our group company managing directors is to bring us ideas and suggestions on add-ons all the time. It's kind of self-feeding machinery that we have created. Market segment attractiveness, looking at the margin growth and ROIC, and then of course the availability of the targets is important. In some markets, you have more targets than in others. All in all, Nordic is a huge aftermarket.
There's a lot of potential for further consolidation. To make it a little bit lighter, it's not only only slightly boring-looking slides. I mean, I tried to describe how we do deals, and I personally have now been in this company for seven years doing quite a few acquisitions. I just want to make a point that deals are always made with people and by people. It's you negotiate with people, and especially when we talk with people who have created the company's their baby, we want to make them stay on board or then that there's a next generation taking over. It's just not only numbers, it's not only the DD processes and such. It's building trust and rapport with the people we negotiate. Look behind the numbers.
I mean, the truth is not always like the numbers look like. We all know that, you have to dig deeper to understand why the specific number is what it is. Why is the profitability? If there's a hockey stick, why has it all of a sudden gone up? Is it probable that it's sustainable? Hence, we spend a lot of time also in turning the stones for the companies that we really want to have a closer look. This building trust and rapport is very important for the negotiation period, because then that lays the tone of the cooperation afterwards. If it's a very tough and acidic negotiation, then I think the situation might be a little bit affected.
Sometimes, I mean, it might be a tough negotiation, and then fine, it's settled, and then we go and create a wonderful business together. I would also then say that we have become better in spending time on commercial and HR DD, because classically, we just spend a lot of time in tax and finance and legal, which are important, of course. It is still the people in the company who do the business, no matter what condition the company is. I mean, if the numbers are great and their governance is fine and the legal contracts are there, but if the team who's supposed to run the company is not top quality and committed, then we have a problem, because we don't have central extra resources somewhere to put in there.
That's not the part of our business, because that would just add on cost for the operation if we just kept resources waiting for these kind of things. We are really spending a lot of time in meeting the management and to the extent it is possible, of course. It's not always possible, but we spend more and more time on that.
Then at the end of the day, no deal can sometimes be better than a bad deal. We are not here to make bad deals. We feel a huge responsibility also of the future success of this company. We don't just acquire companies for the sake of acquiring companies. We need to make sure that they fit in into the company and have a long, sustainable profitability ahead.
Kind of slightly jokingly quoting Kenny Rogers in The Gambler, that you have to know when to fold them, know when to hold them, and know when to walk away. To give you a concrete example, we had a big negotiation last year, continuing all the way this year as well. Can't name any country or names, but I think we walked away twice during the negotiation. Then finally, actually, we didn't buy the company because, well, for many reasons, but it didn't tick the boxes didn't match our quality. Sometimes you win some, you lose some, but we are not going to do bad deals. Just before wrapping up, just wanted to recap the strategy.
It has not changed from what it has been from the beginning. Oh, yeah, slightly it has changed. We have broadened the scope of the aftermarket definition, but we want to be, and we continue to be an active consolidator in the market with a long-term perspective in the Nordic mobility aftermarket.
The sector focus that we have gives us a competitive advantage, which is unique. We aim to grow faster than the market on average. We have been able to do that. Of course, the last two years have been very special years, and I think during my career I've not seen so many discontinuities like the COVID and now the Ukrainian war has caused in the market. I think we are going towards a lighter period.
Creating added value for the customers, it is important because we are in the heart of the operation, there is a big distribution business. As Pekka was stating, we have consciously invested this year and also last year in making a safety stock of the products because the world is unpredictable.
We don't know what's going to happen with the COVID situation in China, and some of a big part of the equipment products is coming from China. We have successfully been, let's say, managed to preempt some of the problems by making the shipments come earlier to our markets, and we've been able to secure that we have the goods for the coming season.
When it comes to the digital solutions, we spend a lot of time and energy and invest in our own digital platforms and more to come in the following years. Our aim, the long-term aim, is to reach EUR 500 million pro forma turnover during 2026. The last slide, thanks for bearing with me. It was a little bit longer than 35 minutes that I promised.
I will soon let Rosa to pose the questions. Yeah, quarter one was a rocky ride. None of the fundamentals have changed. We are an active sector-focused consolidator. We have a strong, solid track record of successful acquisitions. We have a solid cash flow, profitability track record. The market is growing despite everything. It is growing on a long-term over a business cycle. The amount of vehicles is growing.
It has defensive characteristics. The history shows that during hard times, the repair and spare part business has been resilient. We have a growing lighting business with very interesting opportunities even for global roll out and geographically. Also with our e-commerce solutions, we are learning every year how to operate more efficiently. We have a good company, Lumise, which we can use as a basis for further development. Our operating model is and remains very effective and lean, and that is the way we tend to operate also in the future. For my part, thank you, and then Rosa, over to the questions if there are questions.
Good morning from my side as well. Yes, there are quite a few questions. First one comes from Sanna Perälä. To get a better view on the market and your performance, could you disclose something about your organic growth?
Yes, we do not report organic growth, but let's say I wouldn't say shooting from the hip, but roughly it is a minus single-digit number, which is in line with the market development.
Thank you. We continue with Sanna Perälä. You mentioned that your inventories were higher than normal as precautionary measure. How do you see the supply chain developing going forward, and how will that affect your inventories in the near term? What do you see as the normal level of inventories?
Yeah, it's a good question. Thank you. I think from the supply chain point of view, we are seeing less constraints regarding the spare part markets because the main principals are situated in Europe and the lack of components mostly has hit the OE market before it has gone to the aftermarket.
So there's not too much worries on the spare part. I'm not belittling it, but it's not too much of an issue at the moment. The biggest question mark is the supply chain issues in China where most of our lighting products are coming from. We have a good schedule of deliveries coming, and we know more or less exactly when they are supposed to come. What we can't control is the logistics situation in China.
If the harbors are closed or anything, then of course it can delay some of the shipments. At least for the next six months, we have a fairly good overview of the shipments coming. What would be, let's say, a normal normalized inventory level? Maybe Pekka shoot me if I'm saying a wrong number, but I would say maybe 10%-15% lower from the current situation would be a normalized situation. Of course the group is all the time growing, so that's a percentage. The net working capital as a percentage of the net sales is not actually affected that much, to be honest.
We continue with Sanna Perälä. What is the market situation at the moment, and how do you see it developing? Sales of spare parts, commercial vehicles, repair and maintenance, will these still be dampened by the high energy costs?
We see some positive signs, especially so for Sweden. As I mentioned in the beginning, it seems that the Finnish market is slower to recover, and I think we saw it also during the corona times that the Swedish market was quicker to recover. I mean, for us, Norway and Denmark are still less important markets because our foothold in Sweden and Finland is better.
For the commercial vehicle repair and maintenance, it's fairly stable. I'm not seeing a change there that much because the COVID was the main reason for the delayed repairs. For the equipment business, the big decisive period is coming on H2, starting from August when the lighting period is most active. So that is still too early to say anything about the market. I personally think that the worst is over. Then again, it's impossible to really know it.
Thank you. We go to Mika Karppinen and back to organic sales. What was the organic sales growth rate in Q1 2022, and what was it in Q1 2021?
Yeah, thanks, Mika, for the good question. As I said, without going too much into detail, the organic growth was minus growth, which was in line with the market growth. It was a single-digit number.
For 2021, I have to say that I don't have the number here now, but it was. I'm probably not too wrong if I say it was about 10%-15%, at that time, if not even slightly more. Because the full year organic growth for the group was about 10%-11%. For the first quarter, it was a heavier start, especially for Finland. It might have been even closer to 15%. This is with a slight caveat, Mika.
We go to Petri Gostowski, and he has quite a few questions. I will read them one by one. How have the prices developed lately? Are prices going up in the market, and to what extent does the pricing environment differ by businesses?
Thank you, Petri, for good question. Yes, the prices have gone up. Both we have increased prices anything between 2%-10%, depending on the price or the product group. The purchase prices have also gone up.
It's a kind of battle that you have to run to stay where you are. I think it's fairly difficult to read our numbers as the group is changing all the time and the share of the repair business has grown, which has a higher gross profit, but then a lower EBITDA. That is something that probably from an analyst point of view is not always easy to get a transparent picture. Yes, the prices have been increased. They are still. There is a need to increase prices. We are doing it continuously.
It is a huge effort to change prices in this business, with hundreds of thousands of SKUs, but you have to do it basically. Anywhere between 2%-15% even for some products. It's on average. It's not always visible on the net price because also the purchase prices go up.
We continue with Petri. Can you give some color on what kind of impact on margins did the cost inflation have, which is expected to be somewhat persistent, and what was the impact of corona-related sick leaves in the service businesses?
That's a tough one. I'm not seeing or predicting a margin erosion on a continuous basis, because we have been able to move the prices up and the price hikes that we get from the suppliers. Having said that, I think the toughest environment has been Finland and the spare part business as opposed to the repair and maintenance business.
Repair and maintenance business, I'm not seeing changes in the gross margin because there also the labor is the decisive point of the gross margin, not so much always the spare parts. When it comes to our spare part business, I think Finland is the market where it's toughest at the moment, whilst in Sweden I'm not seeing an erosion moving forward. It will stabilize most likely.
I mean, we know at the moment, I mean, of course, if there are some huge energy fuel prices coming. The fuel price issue with our customers is mostly in January, February hitting the repair and maintenance business, partly because of the COVID. People could not come into the workshops. We didn't have the mechanics in place. I have to also acknowledge that some of the smaller transportation companies having two, three, four, five, why not 10 trucks are really suffering at the moment. I think also we would encourage the politicians to start looking at some kind of professional diesel pricing or whatnot because the transportation sector is vital for the economies in our countries.
Do you see current market environment supporting cross-selling synergies and organic growth potential despite an expected flattish market for the year?
Oh yeah, we do. We are nowhere near there yet when it comes to the cross-sales. We have full potential with STS on lighting equipment sales also regarding Raskone. We still have potential with Strands and other lighting brands both in Sweden and Finland for cross-selling and finding new potential. We are. We don't rule the market in that respect at all yet. We are strong, but not that strong that we can't find new customers.
We can still do a lot, and we intend still to do a lot. The potential is nowhere near fully exploited. I'm not saying it's a walk in the park, that it just happens by snapping the fingers. It requires a lot of work and heavy work to find the customers, but there's potential. I'm not afraid of the market development there.
Can you comment on the growth potential of Skeppsbrons? Can they grow in the current facilities or will growth be driven mainly by group synergies?
I think how we consider Skeppsbrons is a stable business, sustainable business. Of course, they will aim to grow. For us, we do not see for that specific unit that it would be something that we would blueprint and then build similar workshops in Sweden. It's rather to benchmark what they are doing and then try to improve the profitability of the existing workshops in other chains that we have in the company.
Skeppsbrons was not acquired to be growing 20% a year. Don't get me wrong, of course, we wish and see them growing, but more in line with the market and to retain the high profitability. Like, I mean, just example, Bengt Hestner.
Bengt, who is the owner and managing director, he's going to consult us in the other chains as well on to running a very operationally effective workshop. We have already very operationally effective workshops, don't get me wrong, but we can always do better.
Continuing with the Skeppsbrons. Skeppsbrons' profitability seems really high. Can you talk about the drivers of this profitability and the historical track record?
Yes, it is a result of a very good ratio between work and spare parts. That is decisive. Let's say the working hour invoicing they can do or pricing of the working hour is on a very healthy level, and I think it ties into the niche player type of operation. They are specialized in certain type of customers. I think that is one part of the story and also probably by expanding that niche segment is to a certain extent explaining the historical development.
We go to the last question from Sanna Perälä. How does the cost inflation we are seeing now affect your profitability?
Provided that we can move the prices forward, it will not affect the profitability, but that is also with a caveat. It's provided that the market conditions allow it. I mean, if the competition as a result of a, let's say, a recession becomes very aggressive, then it's always tougher to get the price increases through.
Provided that we manage to do that, which we should have a possibility to do, then it should not affect the profitability. That is with a caveat. I mean, if the market conditions get even tougher and you can't push through the price increases, then there is always of course a theoretical risk that it will affect. At current, how we regard the market, we are not predicting that.
There are no more questions.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks to the audience for bearing with us. It was way more than 35 minutes, but still a lot of good questions, and I thank you for that, and I wish you a good end of the week. Thank you very much.